The document outlines a gamified approach to release planning consisting of 5 levels. Teams self-organize and take on roles to complete exercises at each level: 1) defining user personas, 2) creating a prioritized feature wishlist, 3) adding MoSCoW prioritization and wow factors, 4) estimating development costs for features, and 5) having sponsors allocate funds to features to create a minimum viable product backlog and release plan mapped to sprints. Completing all levels results in an optimized release plan informed by user needs and development realities.

1. WORKING DRAFT
Last Modified 5/10/2016 4:33 PM India Standard Time
Printed
Gamify Release Planning

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RULES OF THE GAME
1. Self-organize into small teams no larger than 8
2. Identify the team roles (multiple business sponsors, product
owner, architect, dev team, ScrumMaster)
3. PO is the decision maker
4. Scrum Master will oversee all exercises and keep time check
5. At the end of each exercise, teams will present their work

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Cross 5 levels to get to the release backlog/MVP features
1
2 3 345
MVP
feature
s in 5
steps

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McKinsey & Company
Level 1 Success – Personas Defined
Personas are
Archetypal users
Based on observed behaviors patterns and goals
Represent the needs of many
Persona definition must have visual, role, tagline,
goals or top features as s/he sees in the product
1. Split into teams. Come up with relevant user
personas
2. Reconvene as a group and finalize personas
3. Team has personas defined? If yes then Level 1
completed
Personas help
Provide focus
Determine what the product should do and how it should
behave
Communicate with stakeholders and colleagues
Get people committed to the design
Measure the design’s effectiveness
1

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Let’s Play:
Level 1 (10 minutes)

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Level 2 Success – Feature wish list defined
21. Split into teams and role model a persona
each.
2. Come up with top X features as that persona
3. Reconvene as a group, discuss and merge
feature wish list and identify the personas it
applies to.
4. Team has feature wish list defined? If yes then
level 2 completed
Feature wish list is
All the features that will be useful for a persona
No prioritization is needed
X can be 10 or 15 or as many as the team feels is
relevant.
Features wish list helps
Think about the whole product and set the future vision

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Let’s Play:
Level 2 (15 minutes)

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Level 3 Success – MoSCoW and KANO (Wow factor) added
1. As a team take a feature
2. Add Must, Should, Could and Won’t as per
MoSCoW.
3. Add if the feature will add to the Wow factor
4. Team has feature wish list with MoSCoW and
Wow? If yes then Level 3 completed
MoSCoW is
Must, Should, Could and Won’t have features
WOW factor is
Simplified KANO model
Add if the feature will add to the Wow factor to the product
or not
3

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Let’s Play:
Level 3 (10 minutes)

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Level 4 Success – $ value attached to each feature
1. Architect and development team takes the
lead.
2. Give a $ value to each feature as per IT
development complexity.
3. Sponsors are only listeners here
4. Team has dollar value for each feature? If yes
then Level 4 succeeded.
$ value is
IT development complexity measure
100$ is the relative measure of the development
effort the team can spend in delivering the MVP.
$ value isn’t
Business Value
4

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McKinsey & Company
Let’s Play:
Level 4 (10 minutes)
Sponsors think about prioritization!

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Level 5 Success – Spend your $100 and create release plan
1. Real fun bit, the sponsors have it all to buy the
features now.
2. Sponsors take a lead and decide how to spend
their $100.
3. Team has the MVP backlog now
4. Now you are ready to map the features into
sprints for your release plan.
5. Do you have your release plan ready? If yes,
then you just won a jackpot!!!
Buy features helps in
Deciding what feature is worth spending dollars
Also with personas, MoSCoW, Wow factor and
dollar value at one place sponsors know what will
be the business value achieved.
5
Story mapping your release plan
ensures
Dependancies of stories are taken into
consideration
Time factor is taken into account

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McKinsey & Company
Let’s Play:
Level 5 (20 minutes)

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McKinsey & Company
THANK YOU
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